


Small Town Gays

by Parker_Haven_Wuornos



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, M/M, Trying To Make Sense Of The Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 17:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21449716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Parker_Haven_Wuornos
Summary: Small town gays flock together, even if they're different. Even if they're incompatible. Even if neither of those things are true, but they both keep acting like they are.Just some character exploration and trying to sort through some of the events we know happened prior to canon. While not entirely canon-compliant, it's very close.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 17
Kudos: 29





	1. Nathan

**Author's Note:**

> As a small town gay, it always made perfect sense to me that these two would have dated briefly, if at the beginning just for lack of options. I wanted to sort through some timeline stuff and explore the characters and that dynamic. I'm still getting used to their voices, so please forgive me for not having much dialogue in this. Comments and feedback are very welcome!

Nathan had always been aware of Duke. Even before he had any concept of attraction, of romantic feelings, he always found himself looking at Duke. At eight years old, all he’d really known about him was that, like Nathan, Duke’s mother had died. In a town as small as Haven, that made them alike, and it was as good a reason as any to develop a friendship.

Had he known back then that Duke was unreliable? Flighty? Of course. As a kid though, those habits seemed cool, spontaneous, not a warning sign.

Then he had lost the ability to feel. He had thought, that very first day, when they’d been sledding, that Duke leaving him at the hospital signified the end of their friendship. Nathan knew that he would have waited for Duke, if the situation was reversed, but it seemed a little wrong to expect the same from Duke, especially now that he was a freak.

Or at least that was what the doctors were whispering when they thought he couldn’t hear, and what the other kids at school were saying.

The pranks started after the whispers. Tacks stuck in his back, kids poking him during class and laughing when he didn’t notice. It was mostly Duke that did it, which made it hurt worse that it would have if it had been Jerry Henries, or one of the other bullies from whom this kind of thing was expected.

But in a quiet way, Nathan thought that maybe Duke was still looking out for him. He led the charge for the worst of the pranks, that was true, but Nathan also noticed that other kids who tried to do the same thing would find their belongings missing, or frogs in their desk. Everyone knew it was Duke, but no one could ever prove it.

Things changed when the Colorado kid died. Duke was on the beach, and when Garland Wuornos couldn’t get ahold of Simon Crocker, he called Nathan and told him, gruffly as always, to keep Duke company until someone came and got them.

Nathan didn’t know how to talk to someone who’d seen a dead body, so he asked what any eight-year-old would ask. “Was it gross?”

Duke had shrugged. “Not really. I thought he was sleeping.”

“Really?” To Nathan, sleep and death seemed completely different. In his child-brain, people became skeletons as soon as they died, so that everyone knew immediately that they were dead.

“Yeah. He was just lying there, all empty.”

Nathan didn’t want to know what ‘all empty’ meant, so he didn’t ask.

Not long after that, Garland returned and told Duke that he would be spending the night at their house. Nathan thought it looked like maybe his dad was sad, but that seemed just as likely as the sky falling, so he didn’t say anything.

Neither of them would remember that day, or the sleepover they had after it, but it somehow still made an impression on their subconscious.

The troubles went away after that. Nathan never knew why. He just woke up one day and he could feel. He was back to normal, and kids stopped calling him a freak, or treating him differently.

Except for Duke. Duke treated him differently. They were friends again, and it quickly became very clear to the other schoolyard bullies that Nathan Wuornos was off-limits, unless you wanted to pick a fight with Duke Crocker, which nobody did.

It was like that for the next few years, into high school. High school was when Nathan finally began to understand things like attraction and romance—as much as any teenager can—and he realized, quietly, secretly, that he was interested in more than just girls. He hid in the bathroom stalls when it was time to change for gym class, refusing to look or be looked at, holding his breath until it was over.

That was how he went through most of high school: head down, books up, praying not to be noticed.

The first time someone called him a slur was for a very dumb, and very high school reason. He was staring at a girl, he didn’t even remember her name, just remembered thinking she was pretty, and that she was nice, despite being something of a teacher’s pet. The girl’s boyfriend had taken offense to his vague, spacey stare and had picked a fight.

Nathan knew he didn’t stand a chance. He was taller than this guy by a couple inches, but rail thin and gangly, the kind any athlete could easily pulverize. The crowds had gathered, students frothing at the mouth for a little excitement, a little blood.

He flinched, cowering away and bracing himself for the blows, knowing that this would hurt, that his lower than average pain tolerance would remind everyone of the freak he had been in grade school. 

But the hits never came. Instead, the other guy hit the ground, holding his nose. Nathan turned, and saw Duke already vanishing behind the crowd. Unaffected.

That afternoon, for the first time ever, Nathan Wuornos skipped class. He knew, somehow, that Duke would be under the bleachers at the baseball stadium, and there he was, leaning against one of the metal bars and staring into space.

Not sure how to start a conversation he wasn’t certain he wanted to have; Nathan just sat next to him in silence for a long minute.

“What are you doing here?” Duke finally asked.

“Wanted to thank you.”

“So do it then.”

Nathan almost smiled. “Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” The silence had gotten more uncomfortable than the conversation, so Nathan went for it.

Duke stared at him like he was a moron. “You’re my friend.”

That sent a warm, odd feeling through Nathan’s stomach, something good and dangerous. “Really?”

They had barely spoken since grade school, since they had gotten older and taller and had started on the very different paths they would walk.

For a single second, Duke looked hurt, but the expression vanished. “Yeah.”

“We don’t… talk very much.”

“Do you talk to anyone very much?” Duke asked.

Nathan shrugged, which was probably an answer in itself.

More silence.

“Why?” Nathan asked again.

It was Duke’s turn to shrug. “Figured you didn’t want to.”

“’S not true.”

Duke looked at him sideways. “Really? Seems like you want to avoid me.”

“I don’t avoid you.”

“I never see you.” There was the barest hint of an accusation in his voice. Anyone else would have missed it, but Nathan knew him too well.

“You’re never in class,” Nathan said, gesturing to their surroundings.

Duke shrugged again. “Do you ever want to leave?”

“What?”

“Leave. Get out. Drop everything and go.”

“What, leave Haven?” Nathan asked. His stomach twisted strangely.

“Yeah.”

Nathan shrugged to buy himself time. “Where would I go?” _Where would we go?_

“Who cares? Anywhere. We could steal a boat and run.”

He laughed. “Be pirates?”

Duke glared suspiciously for a moment, as if he thought Nathan was making fun of him, before he smiled very carefully. It was like watching snow melt, and this time, the odd flip in Nathan’s stomach was pleasant. “Yeah. We could be pirates.”

It was not an altogether unpleasant idea. It had been a bad enough day that Nathan really did kind of want to run away and never come back. But life was never that simple.

“We can’t just leave.”

“Why not?” Duke asked, his voice heating ever so slightly. “Who would stop us?”

“My dad?” Nathan said on instinct.

Duke snorted. “Really? Would he even notice you were gone?”

Nathan flinched away, stung. The worst part was that Duke was probably right; days could pass without two words passing between Nathan and Garland.

“Sorry,” Duke said very quietly. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Yeah you did,” Nathan replied. “You’re right.”

Duke tried for a smile. “Is it that girl? The one you were staring at?”

“I wasn’t staring,” He said instinctively, feeling his cheeks heat.

“Sure,” Duke said with a small laugh. “Who do you stare at, Nathan Wuornos?”

_You. _He didn’t say that. He couldn’t. It was true though. He was staring now.

Duke was staring back.

Later in his life, Nathan would—unintentionally—make a habit of making dangerously stupid decisions. Looking back, kissing Duke was the first of them.

It was the one that worked out the best though, at least at the start. Duke wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, pulling him in even closer. If anyone saw them out here, it would be the end of both of them, but that didn’t stop Nathan from trying for more, from leaning in and seeking _more. _

One of them broke the kiss first. He wasn’t sure which one, but hoped it wasn’t him. They fell silent again, staring at each other and looking away.

“Does your dad know?” Nathan finally asked.

Duke snorted. “Are you kidding? Does yours?”

“No.”

“I like girls too,” Duke pointed out.

“Same.”

He wanted to ask what that was, what it meant, but couldn’t find the words. It would have started a Conversation, and he didn’t know how to have those. It was easier to keep these—loud, demanding, and very scary—feelings close inside him. They were safer there.

Duke kissed him again before they went back into the building, though Nathan doubted Duke would actually go to history. They both got detention for skipping—a first for Nathan—and he spent the whole thing glancing at Duke and watching him smile whenever he caught him looking.

After that it was a shared secret between them. They met up in the woods behind the school, or late at night on the docks. They talked about everything, which was scary, but not as scary as the nights where they didn’t talk at all, where they just kissed and held each other and pretended this was all perfectly fine.

“Does anyone else know?” Nathan asked one night as they listened to waves crash on the beach.

“About us?” Duke asked. “No. Why, you want to start telling people?”

“No,” Nathan said, perhaps too emphatically.

“Right. Can’t have people knowing you associate with me.”

“Didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right.”

“Duke—”

“I get it Nathan.”

Maybe that was the start of it. The tipping point after which everything started to slide downhill. Duke stopped coming to school altogether. He still met up with Nathan, but he was distracted. From his father, Nathan learned that Duke had been “getting into some trouble” which of course meant crime, and not the little, petty stuff he’d always been in and around. This was bigger, Nathan knew, this was serious.

After a while, he had to say something. “Why do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Stealing?” That was just one example, Nathan knew there was more, stuff he wasn’t sure he should even name.

“I don’t,” Duke lied.

That hurt worse than whatever the real answer would have been, that Duke didn’t even trust him enough to admit it.

“I know you do,” Nathan insisted. “Why?”

There was a heavy, charged silence where Duke glared at the cloudy sky above them. “I don’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you—”

“Don’t tell me that I do,” Duke snapped. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re better than that,” Nathan insisted.

“You don’t know me.”

Nathan stood up and walked away, not bothering to correct him, not trying to explain, to insist that he did know Duke, apparently better than he knew himself. Walking away was easier.

It was much easier than saying that Duke was brave, and smart, and good, and that whatever had him feeling trapped, Nathan would help him get out of it. It was easier than trying to get Duke to see himself the way Nathan saw him.

Maybe part of him thought Duke would come after him, but he didn’t, and Nathan walked home alone and snuck back into his house more clumsily than usual, his head crowded with thoughts.

That was the end of it for a while. Nathan still sometimes went to their usual meeting spots, but Duke was never there. He heard about his various exploits from Garland or the other kids at school and pretended that he didn’t care.

“Wasn’t he your friend?” Garland asked one night, after listing some new addition to Duke’s rap sheet.

“I barely know him,” Nathan responded.

That night, Nathan woke up to the sound of his window scraping open. Duke was too tall and too broad to fit easily through it, and Nathan found himself thanking god that the chief was a heavy sleeper, or else they would be busted.

“What are you doing here?” Nathan asked, when he had gotten over his groggy surprise.

“I’m leaving,” Duke said simply.

It wasn’t the same as him saying goodbye, but that was what he meant, and Nathan knew it. “Do you have to?” Nathan asked, hating how childish it sounded.

“Yeah.”

“But—”

“I’m going, Nate.”

“Are you coming back?”

Duke just shrugged. “I don’t know.”

To Nathan, it sounded like ‘No’, which seemed impossible. What was Haven without Duke? He couldn’t even imagine it.

“You were the only person I wanted to say goodbye to,” Duke admitted after a moment.

But he wasn’t enough to stay for. Nathan nodded, and forced himself to forget their fight, to—for once—not argue with Duke. Instead, he reached up and kissed him, burying his fingers in Duke’s hair for what might be the last time.

Duke kissed him back, leaning in like this was why he’d really come here. He had one hand fisted in Nathan’s shirt, keeping him close.

When they finally let go, both were out of breath and avoiding eye contact. They could have gone further. Nathan doubted that either of them would have said no if one of them had pushed, but neither had. It wasn’t the time.

Maybe now it never would be.

“If you come back,” Nathan said, very quietly. “I’ll be here.”

Duke smiled. “I know you will.”


	2. Duke

If someone had asked eight-year-old Duke why he tormented Nathan, he probably would have said “Because it’s easy.” Nathan made it easy not just because he couldn’t feel, but because he allowed it to happen and he kept coming back.

Later, Duke would start to see this as Nathan’s borderline idiotic tendency to see the best in people, something Duke didn’t have, and never would have admitted that he admired.

Kissing him the first time had been a surprise, but a welcome one. Duke had wondered, secretly, if maybe Nathan wasn’t quite as straight as he acted, but had chalked those thoughts up to wishful thinking, until that moment under the bleachers.

When he came back to Haven to lay low for a while after a rough job, he took his time before reaching out to Nathan. It seemed impossible that they could rekindle whatever quiet, secret thing they’d built in high school.

But small town gays flock together, and even Haven wasn’t an exception to that. The nearest gay bar was in Derry, and after an unfortunate fling with the bartender, Duke didn’t feel entirely welcome there. Unless he wanted to hang out with Angus and his husband, Duke had to find Nathan, if only to escape from the oppressive heterosexuality of it all.

So they ended up drinking together on Duke’s boat. Maybe that wasn’t smart. Maybe Duke should have let things end where they had, abandoned in the past, but in very quiet moments, when his thoughts wouldn’t be ignored, he missed Nathan.

He was still easy to talk to, which was dangerous considering his badge and everything Duke had been up to in the dozen years since he’d last seen Nathan. Thankfully, Nathan was able to go off-duty for some of these conversations, so Duke got to at least allude to his adventures.

For some reason, despite dozens of opportunities, Duke found himself cutting Evi out of the story. Sure, he was married, but only kind of. Only technically. A tequila-induced affair which had resulted in a surprisingly legally binding marriage license that both of them had thought was too funny to annul. He told himself it was because Nathan wouldn’t get that. He was the kind of guy to go all in, if he ever went that way, and Duke’s half-sham, half for laughs marriage would either disgust or disappoint him. 

Really, it was because Duke knew that if Nathan thought he was taken, he would never make a move.

“I’m quitting the force,” Nathan said one night, randomly.

They were sitting next to each other at a bar, pretending that they hadn’t met there on purpose. The declaration came out of nowhere.

“Why?” Duke asked mildly, pretending not to be interested.

Nathan snorted. “Apparently I’m shit at it.”

“That’s not true.” The response came immediately, almost instinctively.

“Well according to the chief it is.” Nathan finished his drink and waved for another one.

“Far be it from me to insult law enforcement—” Nathan raised his eyebrows, but Duke ignored him and went on. “—But the chief is full of shit.”

That earned him an almost-smile, which was gratifying considering the mood Nathan was in.

“He acts like I never do anything,” Nathan went on, “But it’s not like Haven has much in the way of crime to solve. Present company excluded.”

Duke smiled. “You can’t prove that.” Truthfully, Duke did have a job lined up, and one that would make him enough money to buy a house on a beach much nicer than any of the ones in Haven, but whenever he thought about leaving again, he found some excuse not to, his favorite being the ill-advised promise he’d made to his old man before he died.

An idea—one that would be very bad for business, but very good for Nathan—occurred to Duke, and he found himself mulling it over rather than paying attention to Nathan’s rant. He realized a couple of beats too late that Nathan was expecting a response to a question Duke hadn’t heard.

“Am I boring you?” Nathan muttered, bitterness saturating his tone. He stood, throwing a couple of bills down on the table. “Whatever, Duke. I’ll see you around.”

“Nathan—” Duke started, but cut himself off.

“You think it’s fun to pal around with a cop, knowing I won’t arrest you no matter what you tell me you do, that’s hilarious, isn’t it?”

“Nathan—” Duke started again, but found that he still didn’t exactly know what he wanted to say, just that he wanted Nathan to listen, and that he liked the taste of his name.

“You’re just like him, thinking I’m an idiot, shit at my job—”

“That isn’t true!” It wasn’t. For exactly the reasons that Garland probably thought Nathan was a bad cop, Duke thought he was a good one. Compassion, understanding, willingness to listen, those were rare traits in law enforcement, but ones that Duke thought were invaluable. Nathan didn’t just arrest people, he wanted to stop crime, which often meant figuring out why people were doing crime.

Duke knew, also, that it was more than just Nathan’s affection for him that kept him from arresting him. Duke, for all the laws he broke, never really hurt anyone, and had no intentions too. He stole from the rich and kept it for himself, or smuggled shit that was, for the most part, not going to cause any real harm. So Nathan didn’t stop him.

Perhaps, to someone as strait-laced and stubbornly moronic as Garland Wuornos, that looked like weakness, but Duke would never—could never—see it like that, but he doubted that in Nathan’s current state of agitation, the reassurance of a criminal would do any good. 

“Do you even like me, Duke?” Nathan asked, very quietly, not that anyone cared to listen to their conversation.

“What?” Duke asked, too surprised to formulate the resounding ‘Yes!’ that his brain was screaming.

“Do you even like me? Why do we do this? Is it because we… or is it just convenient?”

Duke pulled away, a million things running through his head, dangerous things that weren’t going to be easily spoken. Of course Duke liked him, had always liked him. And Nathan wasn’t convenient, though Duke understood where he’d come up with the idea.

Being with Nathan, even in this weird, fractured way, was easy, comfortable, and in many ways inevitable. Since they were kids, they had felt like the only two people in town who were _like them_.

“Do you like me?” Nathan repeated, “Or am I the only one?”

He was the only one, Duke thought, but that didn’t mean he only liked him for the sake of convenience.

“Nate…”

When no more words were forthcoming, Nathan sighed and shrugged, turning away. “Whatever, Duke.”

With that, he walked out of the bar, and Duke was sure that there was finality in his steps, that the damage he’d just done was un-undoable, and the words he’d left unsaid would remain like that forever.

Three days later, after much drinking and debating, Duke sold out his “business associate” with an anonymous tip that might have saved Nathan’s career, and certainly saved his morale. Duke was no richer or poorer for the action, but he at least felt slightly less shitty for his treatment of Nathan that night. He hoped that maybe this could leave a door open for him and Nathan. Nathan was smart, after all. He would be able to figure out where the tip had come from, eventually, if he looked into it. He would know Duke had done that for him.

And maybe he would know why.

It was business as usual after that. Luckily, no one else suspected what he had done, and his industry was mostly unharmed. He made a couple deliveries, stayed out of hot water, and tried very hard not think about Nathan.

Weeks went by without him “accidentally” bumping into Nathan, and he started to really believe that he never would again, that even in a town this small, there were ways to avoid people and Nathan knew all of them. When he got offered a very lucrative smuggling job, one which would best be done subtly, it felt like a gift from whatever power governed the universe.

It was the kind of job that needed delicacy and quiet. Avoiding the coast guard altogether was always the best option, but if he encountered them, one guy sailing on his own on a ship as big as the _Rouge _would raise more questions than he had legal answers to. Now, two guys fishing on the same boat because it was a nice afternoon? That didn’t raise any questions at all, especially if one of those guys was a cop.

Two birds, one stone, and Nathan never had to be the wiser. It was as much an excuse to talk to him again as it was a wise business move, and Nathan had shrugged aside his under the table dealings enough times that this was hardly a step up.

A quiet part of Duke’s brain—possibly what remained of his conscience—knew that Nathan would not see this as similar to his habit of avoiding looking too hard at evidence which implicated Duke, and that—for Nathan at least—actively being a cover for one of his operations would be crossing a moral line, but he ignored it. After all, Nathan wouldn’t need to know, Duke would get paid, the mysterious people who hired him would get their delivery. No one would get hurt.

Duke hung around the station door, loitering and pretending to be casual as people walked past, ignoring many confused stares from cops as they came in and out of the building while he waited for Nathan, who eventually made an appearance. His jacket was tossed over his shoulder, unnecessary in the warm afternoon air and he looked vaguely preoccupied.

“Nathan!” Duke called, pushing off the wall and approaching him as if this was something he did all the time.

Duke tried not to feel offended when Nathan saw him and glanced over his shoulder, checking to make sure no one was watching them talk.

“What are you doing here?” He kept his voice low and just a little too intense, an effect that Duke found almost distractingly nice.

But he didn’t let that show. He clung to his forced casual act. “Nothing much, I was in the neighborhood and I wanted to talk to you.”

“To me.”

“Yes.” Duke plastered on a smile. _This is normal. Two friends, chatting outside on of their places of business. _“I wanted to see if you wanted to go fishing.”

“Fishing?”

“Yes,” Duke pressed, trying not to feel disheartened by his very… Wuornos-y replies. “The weather’s been nice, seems like a good time to take the boat out.” He let himself look just a little hopeful. “Maybe talk a little?”

Again, Nathan glanced around, searching for prying eyes. He leaned in a little closer. “Sure. I’ve got Saturday off. We can go out then.”

That would put Duke right on schedule for his delivery. “Perfect. You know where to meet me?”

Nathan nodded, and after a brief, awkward moment, they both turned and went their separate ways.

Did Duke feel bad about what he was doing? Possibly. It hardly would have crossed his mind to think about it, so sure was he that Nathan would never even know about the large quantity of contraband that was safely tucked away in his hold. They would go out, fish, talk, and have a good time. Duke’s business never even needed to come up if they weren’t stopped.

The universe must have been on his side, because the day dawned bright and beautiful, with a sky so blue Duke had to stop himself from comparing it to Nathan’s eyes.

The man himself arrived right on time, carrying two coffees and a bag of what was hopefully breakfast with him, looking so casual it was awkward somehow. Duke caught himself smiling and looked away, afraid for some reason that Nathan would see the expression.

“Morning!” He called, giving a little two-fingered salute with a hand that was still occupied holding coffee. He came aboard with ease, something Duke always liked. He never felt like he could trust someone who tripped or had bad balance getting on his boat.

“Ready?” Duke asked, ignoring his nerves and the very quiet voice that was telling him to go back, that he didn’t want to do this.

“Nice day for it,” Nathan commented, looking up at the sky. Duke stole the opportunity to stare at him while he looked away.

“Sure is! Let’s go.” He could hear how forced his cheer sounded and wanted to smack himself. It wasn’t like this was the first time he’d run a con. Normally he was better at them.

At first it was peaceful, even the silence wasn’t awkward as they made it out onto his delivery route, not far from where he was making the drop. He lied easily and told Nathan it was his favorite fishing spot, that he’d had luck there before, and Nathan had accepted that answer without question.

That was the first time Duke really felt bad. Nathan believed what he said without hesitation, without doubt. Duke knew he didn’t deserve that, and shouldn’t like it because Nathan was wasting his trust on him, but he let himself enjoy it anyway.

Duke let himself relax when things had been going well for almost an hour. The sea was calm, and the sun was shining, and Nathan was here, so he wanted to have a good day.

“So,” Nathan said, just when Duke was getting comfortable.

“Yeah?”

“You said you wanted to talk.” Nathan paused. “So talk.”

Great, now he had to figure out a way to say whatever it was he wanted to say to Nathan. “Look, just… after last time we talked I wanted—”

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s not about convenience, Nathan,” He said, very quietly, but very confidently. “That’s what I wanted to say.”

Nathan nodded very slowly and stayed silent, mulling that over. “’M glad.”

Duke would have preferred more of a reaction, but he knew Nathan, and knew that a syllable and a half was probably as good as he was going to get. It wasn’t a full rekindling of their old relationship, but it was something. It was a start.

It all would have been fine if Nathan wasn’t nosy.

That’s what Duke would tell himself later, after everything had happened and he was alone with a bottle of scotch. He would tell himself that Nathan had been nosy. He would tell himself that he should have known better than to go into the hold. He would rant at his reflection that Nathan was the one at fault when really, he knew that he had put all these pieces on the board and had sat back to watch the game play out, foolishly assuming he was in control.

“Duke,” Nathan had said, his voice low and deceptively calm as he emerged from below deck. “What are we doing out here?”

Duke played dumb. “I don’t know Nathan, I thought we were fishing.”

“Really?” He asked, and Duke got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Nathan had stopped looking like Nathan, and started looking like a cop. “So what’s in the hold?”

“Nathan,” Duke said, hating that he was so close to begging. “Don’t ask me that.”

“Why not?” His eyes narrowed, and Duke had the feeling of being on top of an unstable cliff that was crumbling beneath him. “Because you think I can’t guess?”

“Because if you know, then you’re involved!”

A muscle popped in Nathan’s jaw. “If you didn’t want me involved, you shouldn’t have brought me on board, Duke.” He laughed humorlessly. “But you knew that. You wanted me involved. What, did you think I’d flash my badge, scare off the coast guard?”

He wanted to deny it, and in fact thought it reflected just how much he liked Nathan that he didn’t. It would have been insulting to lie now, and that was the last thing he wanted.

“Nathan…”

He stalked closer, his eyes cold with fury, but shining with emotions Duke was scared to look too far into. “Did you even want to talk? Or did you just need a favor?”

“I wanted to talk,” He insisted, but even to his own ears the words sounded like an excuse. He had been caught and he was trying to talk his way out of it.

It was like high school all over again, but not the fun parts. Not the good parts.

“I’m serious, Nathan,” He kept going, knowing he was digging his own grave but not able to stop himself. “I thought—”

“You thought you could do both? Give me some line, maybe get off once or twice, get a little work done on the side? Would have been a productive afternoon.” Nathan had never looked at him with so much loathing. Plenty of people had. He’d seen this expression in dozens of eyes over the years, but never Nathan’s.

He was a fool, really, if he’d ever thought that Nathan was the one person who would never give him this look. He was an idiot to believe that Nathan would always forgive him. He should have known.

“Maybe I did, Nate,” He said, throwing his arms up and giving up entirely. _Fuck this, fuck you. _If Nathan wanted a bad guy, if he wanted an untrustworthy lowlife, well by god Duke could give him that. “Maybe I just figured you wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t care.”

Duke expected a line about how Nathan did care, and how Duke was caught, that he was finally going away for everything he’d done over the years. At this point, being arrested would just be the shit cherry on top of a shitty day. He didn’t expect that Nathan would throw a punch.

He had been in too many fights. It was pure instinct to duck and take a swing at Nathan. If he hadn’t done that, if he’d just backed down, everything might have been fine. But he swung, and the punch landed on Nathan’s jaw, and then it was on.

It hurt. The whole thing was brutal and ugly in every possible way. Duke would have said that he wasn’t angry at Nathan, that he had no reason to be, but somehow, once the fight had started, he found himself boiling over with rage he’d thought long suppressed.

Nathan who had gotten the easy childhood with a distant but moderately caring father, Nathan who had never had anyone look down on him for things he couldn’t control, perfect Nathan, who had the nerve to judge him, to say that he was the one who had done wrong.

He hadn’t. Not really. After all he and Nathan had been through, was one favor so much, really? Duke didn’t think so. None of this should have happened. If Nathan wasn’t so fucking stubborn, so stupidly uncompromising, they could have laughed about this and split the profits over a game of poker and some drinks.

But of course Nathan had to be Nathan-y about everything, and of course the fight had to be what it was, years of pent up frustration and bitterness and something else, something that might have lent itself better to activities other than hitting, but which could now only be resolved like this. It all poured out of both of them, staining everything in the area.

If the coast guard had come up to his boat, boarded and searched it, then walked away with all of his cargo and the sheets off his bed, Duke probably wouldn’t have noticed, but he noticed when Nathan’s trouble kicked in.

It was a slight shift, but suddenly Nathan wasn’t falling back as much as he had, and the punches he threw at Duke were harder, landing on his jaw and cheekbones, hard places that should break fists and would make anyone want to retreat to nurse their wounds, but Nathan didn’t. He kept fighting, his face screwed up with rage, tears streaking with blood down his face.

Duke stopped hitting Nathan. Like yelling at someone who wouldn’t get angry back, hitting someone who couldn’t feel it carried no satisfaction.

Just like that, it was over. Everything was over. Duke took them home, forgetting about his delivery, which he would make later without any help. Nathan stayed as far away from Duke as he could, which was fine, because Duke didn’t want to be anywhere near him either.

There was no goodbye at the docks. Their friendship, their whatever, had ended with the first punch thrown, or maybe it had ended when Duke met Nathan outside the station. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that it was over, and Nathan’s form growing smaller and smaller on the docks didn’t make that any more real.

There was no one to ask how he was. If they had, he would have shrugged, said he was fine. But it occurred to him, as he pressed ice against where his face was swelling, ignoring the sting and envying Nathan his numbness, that there was nothing holding him back anymore. He knew how to operate; he knew how to not get caught.

And he laughed as he sat alone, thinking about Nathan in his office, endlessly frustrated that Duke Crocker would remain at large, no matter how many laws he broke.

“If you want to stop me, Nate, you’re going to have to kill me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and feedback are welcome!


End file.
